Ghost Trick Phantom Detective

Review

Whether or not you’re a fan of the Ace Attorney series of games, they’ve been an amazing success for Shu Takumi, and now he’s turned his hand to ghostly detective capers with this latest DS offering from Capcom

Publisher:

Capcom

Developer:

Capcom

Release Date:

14-Jan-2011

Platform(s):

DS

Genre:

Puzzle

Age Rating:

If you’ve played any of the Phoenix Wright games then you’ll have a good idea of what’s going to be on offer here, with the usual over the top characters, enjoyable mysteries to be solved, bizarre twists, great music and thoroughly lovely graphics – and that’s without mentioning the disgustingly addictive gameplay.

With 19 levels on offer, your character, the recently deceased Sissel (the phantom detective from the title) will be tasked with exploring the environment before racing against a four minute countdown to set in motion a sequence of events that will prevent the death of whichever character you’re trying to save. The gameplay itself is very much a tactile experience, relying on plenty of experimentation with the stylus in order to figure out precisely what’s required of you – and thankfully there’s plenty of margin for error, so it’s quite forgiving which is nice.

There’s definitely a nice change of pace on offer (literally, given the fact that you can switch at will between the world of the living where time passes normally, and the world of the dead where it stands still) for even the most seasoned gamers, while casual players will enjoy both the narrative and gameplay on offer. Excellent stuff from Takumi once again.